Chicago police have reported that Barbara Byrd-Bennett, The former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, was charged in connection with allegedly steering a $20.5 million contract and other jobs, to her former employer.
The Chicago Sun Times reports:
Byrd-Bennett — Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked choice — becomes CPS’ first CEO to face criminal charges in connection with her job. Federal authorities have been investigating the contract — the largest no-bid CPS deal in recent memory — for more than a year.
Receiving the contract in 2013 to train principals was The SUPES Academy, owned by former Niles West High School dean Gary Solomon and his former student Thomas Vranas. It generated controversy at the time because SUPES was not known for training principals while many other, respected organizations did that very job. The deal continued to draw criticism as some educators questioned the quality of SUPES’ training.
Solomon and Vranas were also charged, as were SUPES and another company they owned, Synesi Associates LLC.
The feds allege that Byrd-Bennett and Solomon set up a kickback scheme, detailed in emails, in which Byrd-Bennett would get money in exchange for steering CPS contracts to SUPES and Synesi.
Byrd-Bennett also had accounts set up for two unnamed relatives, dubbed a “college fund,” where kickbacks could be deposited, the feds allege. While the indictment does not name the relatives, a source familiar with the investigation said they are Byrd-Bennett’s twin grandsons who live in Ohio.
The money would be disguised as “a signing bonus” when Byrd-Bennett left CPS and returned to SUPES and Synesi as an employee, the feds say.
In an email that Solomon sent to Byrd-Bennett, he allegedly wrote: “Like we have discussed, we have created accounts that, upon withdrawal, we will pay down the taxes and distribute. You can distribute to [Relative A and Relative B] as you deem appropriate. It is our assumption that the distribution will serve as a signing bonus upon your return to SUPES/Synesi. If you only join for the day, you will be the highest paid person on the planet for that day. Regardless, it will be paid out on day one.”
Solomon also alleged offered to arrange to employ Byrd-Bennett’s friends in exchange for more contracts and reimbursed her for a holiday party she hosted for CPS employees in December 2012.
The kickbacks didn’t stop there, with Solomon and Vranas also giving basketball and baseball game tickets, meals and other personal items to Byrd-Bennett, the feds say.
U.S. Attorney Zach Fardon is expected to hold a news conference this afternoon to discuss the case.
After the federal investigation became public, Solomon’s controversial past and current success within CPS came to light. He had been forced out as a suburban high school administrator after making racist and sexually harassing remarks. Despite that, he later played a key role in getting Byrd-Bennett her top job with CPS.
Solomon left Niles Township School District 219 under a cloud in 2001 after he was accused by administrators of “immoral and unprofessional” conduct, including allegations he kissed a female student, covered up students’ drug and alcohol use and sent “sexually suggestive, predatory” emails to students, court records show.
Years later, he and Vranas founded SUPES Academy to train school leaders, and the two other education consulting companies in the northern suburbs. They recently sold parts of all three.
SUPES Academy employed Byrd-Bennett as a training coach before she landed at CPS. Previously, she had run school districts in Cleveland and Detroit. SUPES also was brought in to coach CPS’ network chiefs through a pilot program under Byrd-Bennett’s predecessor, Jean-Claude Brizard, but the program was discontinued after a year.
Brizard has called Solomon “instrumental” in getting Byrd-Bennett to CPS, first as a coach for CPS official Noemi Donoso, then as Donoso’s replacement, then as Brizard’s successor.
Emanuel elevated Byrd-Bennett to CEO in October 2012, about a month after the historic Chicago Teachers strike whose resolution she helped broker as the district’s second-in-command. A former teacher and principal, Byrd-Bennett forged a bond with CTU President Karen Lewis when she helped negotiate an end to the strike. Sources told the Sun-Times that Board President David Vitale managed her contract and was “very, very supportive” of her promotion.
She championed the shutdown of 50 neighborhood schools in May 2013, saying the district couldn’t afford to keep them open as enrollment dropped. A month later, she asked the Board of Education to approve the SUPES $20.5 million deal that had gone though CPS’ “sole-source” or no-bid process. With no public discussion, the six board members who were there voted for the contract, including Jesse Ruiz, who served briefly as Byrd-Bennett’s temporary replacement after she left.
Complaints about the training’s quality quickly rolled in from principals. Leading education experts also said they’d never heard of the north suburban company, according to Catalyst Chicago magazine, which reported on the conflict of interest in its July 2013 issue.
By December 2012, CPS’ inspector general was investigating the contract.
In April this year, federal agents delivered subpoenas to CPS for records about the Solomon companies, as well as records of “financial benefits, gifts, honoraria, meals and reimbursements” concerning Solomon and Vranas.
They also requested employment records for Byrd-Bennett, Martin, and two close Byrd-Bennett associates, Sherry Ulery and Rosemary Herpel. Martin was the $170,000-a-year head of a special network that Byrd-Bennett created at CPS to oversee struggling neighborhood schools.
Ulery, her $175,000-a-year chief of staff, and Herpel, a $140,000-a-year “executive director of leadership development” in CPS’ HR department, were also called before a federal grand jury.
Two days after those subpoenas came to light, Byrd-Bennett left CPS on a paid leave. Her homes in Chicago and outside Cleveland had been searched by the FBI, sources have told the Sun-Times.
She resigned from CPS on May 29. Her aides also since have left CPS.
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(Photo Source: Sun-Times Media)